The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy) (7 page)

seven

It
was two minutes to one and I was nervous.

I
was on the gallery above the Main Hall, hidden in an alcove next to a portrait
of a sneery fellow with a wig and a gown.  He peered sourly down his nose at me
with his lip curled as if nauseated by a bad smell.  By poking my head around
the corner, I had a clear view up the corridor that led to the Head Master’s
flat, where the lights were out.  The doors to Red and Wolfhall were on the
left.  There was a bathroom on the right.

It
was a very still night.  I could very faintly hear a steam-train clattering in
the distance and, closer at hand, some muffled snoring and a dripping cistern. 
I kept as well hidden as I could, with my eyes intent upon the Wolfhall door-handle,
about ten or fifteen yards away from me.

Then
it turned gently and silently.

Vanderpump,
at the vanguard, popped his head around the door to ensure that Wilbraham’s
lights were out and that no Masters were on the prowl.  He crept across the
corridor to the bathroom with his pillow slung over his shoulder like a burglar
escaping with swag.  Then he beckoned to his accomplices and put his finger
over his lips.  I waited for a few seconds to count them as they filed out.

Seven. 
Vanderpump and the twins were there.  But I didn’t wait to see who the other
four were.  I ran as quickly as I could on the tips of my toes back to Portico.

“They’re
on their way,” I whispered.

Reggie
clambered up onto Freddie’s chair while Freddie wedged a slipper between the
door and its frame.

“You’re
gonna love this, mate,” Reggie said to me, as he ordered Peregrine to pass him
no fewer than five brimming beakers and balanced them on top of the door. 
“They’re gonna get soaked.”

“Quickly
then,” I said.  “Battle formations.  They’ll be here any second.  Foxtrap, as
soon as they’re in, knock on that door.  Okay?”

We
waited in our positions with our pillows at the ready.

At
first it all happened so quickly.  Suddenly they were here.  As Vanderpump and
the others burst through the door, the beakers of water came sloshing and
clattering down around them.  Vanderpump bore the brunt and was totally
drenched.  Though some of the other Seniors laughed, Vanderpump was not
amused.  He flew into a rage.

Before
waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of our dorm, he tried to rush
forwards with his pillow flailing in all directions.  But, as he did so, he
slipped on the water under his feet and landed firmly on his backside.  The
other Seniors, also unsighted and bundling in behind him, all ended up in a
heap on the floor, either by sliding on the water-slick or stumbling over him.

Then,
just as the reinforcements from Marlborough were arriving, we pounced from Freddie’s
bed and set about the Seniors with our pillows.  They were routed.

Most
of the Seniors took the clobbering with very good humour, calling “Mercy!” or
“I surrender!”  Four of them picked themselves up from the floor and beat a
battered retreat.  But not Vanderpump.  He went on a furious rampage, flapping
his pillow around wildly and battering everyone within a six foot radius of
him.

He
then threw his pillow onto the floor and began to lash out crazily with fists. 
He caught Peregrine firmly on the chest.  Peregrine staggered backwards and
shouted, “Oy, Vanderpump!  What the
hell
do you think you’re playing
at?”

“Shut
up, you little turd,” Vanderpump fumed.  “Ah, there you are, Turnpike!”

His
eyes had obviously adjusted to the darkness and he lurched straight towards
me.  I was standing by the edge of my bed, exchanging pillow-blows with one of
the twins, when Vanderpump thumped me heftily in the midriff.  As I floundered
backwards, struggling vainly to seize a breath, he threw me to the floorboards. 
I slid backwards past Algie’s bed.  Algie burst into tears.

“Whoa
there,” cautioned one of the twins.  “Go easy on him, Hector.”

“Yeah,
go easy on him,” added the other, with a note of genuine concern.

“Oh
I don’t think so!” replied Vanderpump.  “No.  This one’s for the high jump!”

From
what I could tell, everyone had stopped fighting by this point and stood where
they had been, near the door, watching Vanderpump in surprise and fear.  I had
ended up in a heap by the window with Vanderpump bearing down upon me.  I was
still winded and, having landed on the wooden floor on my right elbow, I had
pain shooting along my forearm to my right hand.

“Vanderpump,
what on
Earth’s
the matter with you?” shouted Freddie, obviously no
longer concerned that a Master might hear.

“Another
word out of
any
of you,” growled Vanderpump menacingly, “and you’ll all
spend the rest of your
lives
in Detention.”

I
struggled to get up onto my feet.  I was determined not to let him have the
better of me, even though I knew this was idiocy because he was twice my size. 
He looked totally maniacal, twitching with humiliation and fury.

“I
suppose that was
your
idea, the water?” he spat, evidently having
already decided upon the answer to the question.

“Yes,”
I replied defiantly, jutting my chin, and added, “What are you going to do
about it?”

That
was it.  He was now utterly berserk.  Roaring, he wrapped his left hand around
my throat and lifted me bodily from the floor.  Everyone in the room was too
shocked to move.

Everyone,
that was, but Algie.  Amazingly, Algie, of all people, sprang from his bed and
charged at Vanderpump, yelling, and began to pound him about the back with both
fists.  But Algie’s efforts were futile.  As I dangled with my feet flapping about
a foot off the ground and spluttering and struggling to breathe, Vanderpump
brutally backhanded Algie about the face and onto the floor.  Then he issued me
a cracking, resounding wallop to the jaw.

But,
in the heartbeat moment before his mallet-fist made its crunching contact with
my face, the lights were on.  I was blinded by the sudden illumination and
deafened by the ringing in my ears as I was dropped to the floor.  There was a
metallic taste in my mouth.

“
Vanderpump
,”
boomed Doctor Saracen’s voice, “what the
hell’s
going on in here?”

There
was no reply.

“Right. 
You lot, in bed
now
!  Turnpike, Foxtrap, I’ll send the Duty Matron to
see to you.  You three,” he said to Vanderpump and the Bearbaiter twins, “are
coming with me.”

eight

The
story of the previous night’s events, or something resembling it, had spread
throughout the school like a contagion.  People were turning to stare at Algie,
Freddie and me as we waited nervously outside of Wilbraham’s study.  There was
a small cluster of boys loitering in the Front Hall, obviously intending to
listen in.

Algie’s
right eye, magnified by his thick glasses, was purple and seeping and had
swollen shut.  It looked like a rotten plum.  He sat next to me with his cap
pulled down over his forehead and his red armband strangling his sleeve.  He was
trembling in fear, his left eye darting around frantically.  I had tried to
reassure him that we wouldn’t be in any trouble, but it was impossible.

My
face was just as colourful a picture as his.  The left half of my bottom lip
was fat and wobbling, my right elbow was still throbbing faintly and a great
bruise had spread down my forearm like spilt ink expanding across blotting-paper.

“In
you come, boys,” growled Mr. Wilbraham, holding the door open for us and
looking all the more fearsome in his gown and mortar-board.  “Sit!”

We
sat.  Algie was staring at his sandals.  He was almost convulsing with the tension. 
Wilbraham perched on the edge of his desk, which creaked painfully under his
monstrous weight.

His
study was like the inside of a huge trophy cabinet.  The wood panelled walls
were adorned with glittering cups, shields and medallions awarded for
who-knows-what.  There was a pair of crossed swords on the wall over
Wilbraham’s right shoulder, and a pair of crossed shot-guns on the wall over
his left.  Directly behind him, almost seeming to hover over him like a grizzly
halo, was the severed head of an enormous white stag with antlers that spread
out in a vast, uncomfortable embrace.

“Now,
look here you three,” he began.  He was speaking very softly.  It was
unsettling.  “Vanderpump has officially informed on you.  He has said that
Portico is a hotbed of rebellion and that you, Turnpike, and you, Strange, are
the ringleaders.  I trust you understand what this means.”

He
looked at each of us, allowing time for the message to sink in.  Algie released
a shuddering moan of terror, tears streaming down his cheeks.  The mention of
the word “inform” was enough to fill even the bravest soul with dread.  My
stomach weakened.  My poor mother.

“But...
but...,” stammered Freddie.

“
Quiet,
boy
!”  Wilbraham boomed, making the windows rattle and Freddie recoil. 
Wilbraham looked towards the door as if to ensure that anyone outside it would
have heard him.  He then leant towards us, his angry scowl softened and he
started to speak in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Look
here, boys.  I don’t give a damn about Vanderpump’s lies.  Fact is he’s a
disgraceful bully.  But unfortunately, as I’m sure you are aware, he has
friends in high places. 
Very
high places.”

I
was bemused.  But then I realised:  Wilbraham was trying to protect us.  The
rules were clear.  If a boy heard a Master or another boy plotting or conspiring
against the Party, or even accidentally muttering something that sounded
vaguely anti-Nazi, he had a duty to inform to Mr. Wilbraham and nobody else. 
Mr. Wilbraham then had a duty to pass the information directly to
Schulekommandant Ludendorff.  The information would pass straight up the chain
of command and end up with the Gestapo, who would put you on file or perhaps pay
your family a visit to ensure that no harm was meant.

“I
will take this nonsense no further,” whispered Wilbraham, “on the understanding
that you will not, under any circumstances, mention this conversation to
anyone.  Yes?  I know the boy’s father.  He still owes me a favour or two, so
there will be no trouble.”

Algie
looked up from the floor.  He had stopped shaking and whimpering and was
staring in open-mouthed disbelief at Wilbraham. 

He
was usually such a terrifying man.  Well, he was more ogre than man really,
with a great, thatched head, a grizzled beard which would make a spacious home
for a flock of geese, and enormous, swollen hands which could swing a length of
silver birch with cruel speed.

He
paced over to the window and stood there, gazing out, with his hands clasped
behind his back, like Inspector Poirot on the brink of solving an intricate
murder.  I turned to watch Wilbraham.  It was a glorious morning and the view
from the window of his office was spectacular, like a scene from a painting. 
It looked out between two of the pillars, over the circular lawn in front of
the school, straight up the mile-long drive, along which Mr. English boasted
that he could get his Morris Minor to do fifty, and up the wooded hill to the
Monument, which was perched there like a space-rocket poised for launch.

Wilbraham
shook his head as if to extract himself from the landscape.  “I will have to
issue you with some punishment, of course,” he mused, “for the sake of
appearances.  So, my proposal would be to give you two, Strange and Turnpike,
an afternoon’s Hard Labour, and you, Foxtrap, Detention.  I think we can leave
it at that, don’t you?”  

He
swivelled his enormous frame on his heels and looked at us with a barely
noticeable nod as if to punctuate his decision.  “Righto.  I think we’d all
better get along to Assembly.”

I
was elated with relief.  Hard Labour was hardly a punishment at all.  It was
usually just sweeping the floors and rearranging desks or helping out in the
vegetable gardens.  Wilbraham knew that.

nine

Freddie,
Algie, Reggie and I climbed the steps to the Orangery that morning with boys
gaggling around us, trying to find out what happened with Wilbraham.  Freddie
and Reggie were, of course, keeping them happy with elaborate tales and impersonations,
so Algie and I managed to avoid having to say anything to anyone before we had
taken our seats.  Looking around, I could not see Vanderpump or the Bearbaiter
twins anywhere.

The
Orangery was the recently repaired west wing of the school building and it was
where we had Assembly every morning.  Though it gleamed with new windows and
carpets, there was always a frostiness about it, even on such a warm summer’s
morning.

It
was said that during the War an errant bomb dropped by a Messerschmitt had landed
in the Deer Park, close to where the Orangery stood and where, at that time,
the school was assembled for Prayers, just as we were this morning.  The
bomb-blast was so powerful that it had caused an earthquake throughout the
Forest, shaking the birds from the treetops and the rabbits from their
warrens.  Since the Orangery was so close to the epicentre, all of its windows
were blown in, causing a lethal blizzard of shattered glass.  Many of the boys
and teachers suffered hideous injuries as the shards sliced across the room,
burying themselves deep into flesh, taking slices of arm and ear with them. 
The Headmaster at that time was announcing the Talltrees 1
^st
XI’s
success in the previous day’s football matches against Roseacre, when a large
dagger of glass hurtled through the air inches past his head and cruelly
slashed his wife’s throat wide open.  He stood helpless at the lectern as her
head lolled backwards and she gurgled away her flailing final moments.

After
this, the Headmaster lost his mind to a trembling insanity from which he never
recovered and, before the War was over, he was found in the Round Room, next-door
to the Orangery, swinging from the rafters by a noose about his neck.

It
was agreed among the teachers when Wilbraham took over as Headmaster that, for
reasons of decency, the Round Room should be walled up to serve as a tomb for
the Headmaster and his wife.

This
morning’s assembly involved the usual dreary assortment of prayers and hymns,
followed by Wilbraham announcing that this year the Grand Pillow Fight would be
cancelled on account of the “irresponsible behaviour last night”.  This news
raised a unanimous groan and some scowling glances in our direction.  But this
didn’t concern me.  I was far more disturbed by Wilbraham’s other announcement: 
Two more boys taken ill, both First Formers.

I
looked over to where Colonel Barrington sat between Ludendorff and Saracen. 
His face was a cruelly expressionless mask.  I felt anger and hatred surging
inside me.  How could anyone be so evil?

Perhaps
I should tell someone about what we had heard in the Hidden Library, someone
like Wilbraham or maybe Mr. English or Mr. Caratacus?  But no, I realised, that
would be really stupid.  If I was right in thinking that Barrington was
carrying out experiments on boys for the Party, that would mean that his orders
would have come from high up.  Freddie and I would have to keep it to ourselves
for now.  Anyway, we would need hard evidence, and we had none.  And could we
really trust anyone at all, even Caratacus?  If Barrington really was doing
something under orders, how could we know that there weren’t others involved
too?

After
Wilbraham’s usual assurance that the epidemic would soon end, he introduced
Doctor Boateng.  “This morning, boys, we have an unusual treat for you.  Doctor
Boateng is an Honorary Aryan who is visiting us from the Ethnology Laboratories
in Frankfurt.  He will be talking to us this morning about some of the more
outlandish cultures of the, er... Inferior Races.”

Doctor
Boateng stepped up to the lectern.  This was the first time I had really seen
him clearly.  He was a tall and well-built man, but he looked tired, very tired. 
His eyes were bloodshot and his brow was deeply furrowed.

Most
boys shifted in their seats, as if the anticipation of prolonged boredom had
already made them uncomfortable.  But, as soon as Doctor Boateng began to
speak, I knew that it would be a whole lot more interesting than it sounded.

 “Can
anyone tell me,” he asked with his deep, hoarse tone, “what is the
Vodun
?”

There
was no reply.  Boateng left us for a few moments with an evasive silence
interrupted only by distracted shuffling and shrugging.  Freddie, sitting next
to me, had already decided that he was bored and so was fiddling with a ball of
Silly Putty which he had detached from the inside of the pocket of his shorts. 
But it occurred to me that this was not the first time that I had heard the
word “Vodun”:  It was one of the strange words Doctor Boateng had used during
his argument with Colonel Barrington in the Hidden Library.  There must be some
kind of connection between this “Vodun” thing and whatever it was that
Barrington was planning.

“Okay,
okay, perhaps I am being unfair,” continued Boateng.  “Let me pose my question
differently:  Can anyone tell me what is
Voodoo
?”

Well
this certainly grasped everyone’s attention.  Freddie hurriedly stuffed his Silly
Putty back into his pocket and looked up, open-mouthed.

“Anyone? 
Ah, yes.”  He pointed to Reggie.

“It’s
black magic, isn’t it, Sir?”  Reggie asked.  A handful of First Formers
tittered.

“Black
magic indeed!  Anyone else?”

“Isn’t
it a cult where they stick pins into dolls?” asked a Fifth Former to more
general laughter.

“Ah
yes, of course.  Pins in dolls,” repeated Doctor Boateng.  “Any other suggestions? 
Yes?”

It
was Pontevecchio.  “It’s a West Indian religion, Sir,” he stated confidently.

“Aha! 
We have an excellent theologian in the room!  Well done, young man!  But does
anyone know
how
Voodoo got to the West Indies?”

After
a few moments, Doctor Boateng slotted a slide into the projector and an image appeared
on the wall behind him.  A drawing of a ship with two very large sails.  There
was some writing underneath the image, but it was impossible to make out.  The
silence continued and another image replaced this one.  It looked like a black
and white photo of the inside of a butcher’s shop.  There were a couple of
gasps from First Formers.  But I could not tell why until Boateng said one word: 
“Slavery”.  Only then did I realise that these were not joints of pork and
beef, but were living people piled onto wooden shelves, their ribs and hips
jutting frighteningly from their abdomens and their eye-balls and teeth from
their haggard faces.

“Slavery
has been illegal for a long time now, of course,” Boateng explained to his now
captivated audience, “but this is a very old photograph of the inside of a
slave-ship.  I’m sure you have all been taught by Doctor Saracen in your Ethnic
Hygiene lessons that scientists discovered in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
that many of the non-Aryan races are very well suited to basic labour and do
not have well developed senses of family attachment or of personal dignity.” 
It was strange to hear him speaking about other Africans like this.  It sounded
wrong, like he was reciting something he had been told to say.  “So Western
Africa was seen as an enormous resource for labourers who could be transferred
to areas of the New World where the need for labourers was high.  Most of the
slaves would be captured during swift raids on their settlements, often carried
out by Africans of other tribes who were paid by Westerners and had been taught
the virtues of trade.”

Freddie
nudged me, but I knew what he was thinking.  It reminded me of Pontevecchio’s
story about Barrington’s wife.  She had gone missing during a sudden attack on
their home.  But surely, I thought, slavery had not existed for a very long
time and anyway she was a well-educated, married
Aryan
woman.  Surely
she couldn’t be sold into slavery, could she?  It also made me think briefly
about my father who, like the fathers of many of my friends, had been visited
years ago by the SS and had never been seen again.

Voodoo,
Boateng explained, was brought to the West Indies by the slaves.  In Voodoo, there
was one god and a number of lesser beings called
Loas
, who, like saints,
look after certain specific things, ranging from hurricanes and plagues to
little things, like particular trees and rocks.

 “Voodoo
followers use Voodoo in every part of their lives,” Boateng continued, “So the
most important people are the Voodoo priests.  They are known as
Houngans
,
but are more commonly called
Witchdoctors
.” 

Witchdoctors. 
Of course!  Colonel Barrington had mentioned a Witchdoctor during his argument
with Boateng.  It was a Witchdoctor that had given him the mysterious book.

 “When
slaves like these,” Boateng indicated the picture on the wall, “arrived in the
New World, their new masters forbade Voodoo ceremonies so that they could be
educated as good Christians.  But it has recently been discovered by scientists
that many of the Inferior Races were simply incapable of receiving the Word of
God.  The shapes of their skulls indicate that their brains do not have the
parts necessary to understand such things.”  Again, I could not believe that he
could speak like that about people of his own race.  It made me feel somehow
uncomfortable.  “Furthermore, they discovered that certain non-Aryan races were
capable of surprising levels of deceit, and the slaves continued to carry out
Voodoo rituals by disguising them as church services so that their masters
would not find them out.  In fact, the deception was so thorough that each Loa
became associated with a particular Christian saint.

It
was because of this deception that Christians decided that Voodoo must be a Satanic
cult, performing such outrages as human sacrifice and cannibalism.  And these
ideas seem to continue to this day.  So this,” he said, nodding towards the
First Formers, “is why some of you youngsters associate Voodoo with black
magic.  Well, I’m sorry to tell you that that just goes back to an old
misunderstanding.  It isn’t black magic.  In fact, scientists have shown that
while the Inferior Races are capable of dishonesty and fraud, they are not
capable of anything as complicated as black magic, even if it did exist.”

I
began to get the creeping feeling that Doctor Boateng was not telling the whole
truth.  During their argument about Voodoo, Barrington had said that Head
Matron and Miss Prenderghast were under some sort of
spell
– that
must
mean black magic!  If Boateng was telling us now that Voodoo has nothing to do
with black magic, then one of the two of them must be wrong.

The
picture on the wall changed to one showing what looked like dolls made of wood
or clay.  “This is perhaps where you older boys get the pins-in-dolls myth. 
They are called Fetishes.  All they are is ritual objects rather like Christian
relics or crucifixes.  But I can tell you that there is nothing sinister about
them and, since they are usually made of wood or clay, I should think that they
are far too hard to stick needles into!”  He threw a quick, sidelong glance at
Barrington and finished by stating, “So I’m sorry to disappoint the
superstitious amongst you, but Voodoo is not black magic.”

I left
the Orangery with the unsettled feeling that there was more to Doctor Boateng
than met the eye.  But I couldn’t make sense of any of it.  I was starting to
want to find out more.  But first, Double Biology with Miss Prenderghast.  If
there really was Voodoo black magic, then perhaps we would find out what sorts
of effects it had had on her.